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RACE FACTS - Having won the Monza 1,000-kms with Johnny Herbert and Jamie Davies, hardly half a second ahead on the #8 sister car, and having won the pole position at Le Mans, the #88 and #8 started as the major favourites of the 72nd edition. Jamie Davies makes a faultless first stint, is after one hour 23 seconds ahead of the sister car. Then, over the radio, he reports that something is touching his ankle in the footwell of the car. At the following pit stop, handing the car over to Guy Smith, it appears to be a loose component from the on-board camera. After 90 minutes Lehto in the #2 Audi R8 and McNish in the #8 Audi R8 follow at 25 seconds. Late in the second hour, when both McNish and Lehto crash at the Porsche Curves, having slipped on oil, advance over the second - now the Japanese Audi - is up to one lap. That difference is nearly unchanged at midnight, after eight hours of racing. Meantime the team of manager David Ward performed a miracle on making the crashed #8 going again after two hours of hard work. At 20.30h Johnny Herbert makes his first stints, four (!) in a row.
Drama shortly after 01.00h when Magnussen (Corvette C5-R) and Jamie Davies collide at the Ford Chicane after a driving error of the Brit. The Corvette backs into the wall and needs to be dragged out. Davies is sanctionned with a stop and go penalty, allegedly for overtaking under yellow flags.. The gap between the #88 and #5 Goh Audi is less than a lap as a result of the penalty and the collision (and stop for a check) for Davies: it's 2 mins 40 at 01.35h. Johnny Herbert finishes his quadruple stint after four hours of non-stop racing. After ten hours of racing the gap is down to 1'34". At 02.30h difference is down to 49" after a hyper fast stint of Tom Kristensen on the #5. However, a couple of misfirings at the #5 Team Goh Audi R8 makes that around mid-race the difference between both cars is again one full lap and remains stable until 07.06h, when Herbert comes in with rear suspension problems. The Veloqx mechanics use an angle grinder to 'adjust' the rear suspension - a stop of seven minutes. When Davies takes over the car has lost the lead and is two minutes down to Capello who is now leading in the Team Goh #5 Audi R8. Then it's up to Jamie Davies to reduce the margin. He realises a 3'35"081 - then a 3'34"264 at 07.44. After 18 hours of racing the Veloqx Audi R8 is 2'40" down to Tom Kristensen's #5 Team Goh Audi R8. At 11.28h Davies spins off at the Dunlop Curve and is now a complete lap down to the leader. A small fire on the #5 Team Goh Audi R8 at 12.37h makes the leading car loosing two minutes in the pits, so that Jamie Davies is now less than one minute down to the leading car. Then Johnny Herbert takes over for the rest of the race. He can reduce the gap to 35 seconds, but comes never closer than that. At the finish he's 41 seconds down to Ara in the winning car. |
